Kuala Lampur, Aug. 22 -- The war in Gaza is no longer just a Middle Eastern tragedy. It has become a global cautionary tale - one that Asean can ill afford to ignore.

The statistics emerging from Israeli military intelligence itself paint a stark picture of a war that has tilted almost entirely against civilians.

Nineteen months into the conflict, Israel's own classified assessments reveal that just 17 percent of those killed were identified anti-Israeli resistance fighters, normally defined as Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The remaining 83 percent - five out of six deaths - were civilians.

In numerical terms, out of more than 53,000 Palestinians killed, only about 8,900 were combatants.

The rest were ordinary men, women, and children who ...